Thread: might buy from auction, 140k miles need help identifying leak

Hey y'all noob here that's been looking for a supercharged 3800 for a while now but can't ever find a decent one at a decent price in my area until now ..just check it out today and it runs great no weird sounds or anything but does have slot of lol/grime around the intake/supercharger and valve covers so just wanna see what the pros out there think this is before I buy it...any help very appreciated thank you

Well, you didn't say what year it is, but if it's a 97-03 GTP then that would likely be the valve cover gaskets leaking at a minimum. Not sure if you can see this on an S/C car but if you look where the lower intake meets the heads (this is looking at the pulley side- E.G. passenger side of the engine) and see if you see a black gasket there or an aluminum one. If black then it's the stocker that will fail at some point. If you do end up buying it then new LIM gaskets, Fel-Pro valve cover gaskets and grommets would be on my short list, along with a coolant flush and change to green to rid it of the DexCool junk. Along with a thermostat. I'd do plugs and wires at that point as well if they haven't been changed. Basically a tune up with some extras.

Hopefully it's been running 91+ octane fuel as well.

My question would be what shape is the trans. in? Does the fluid smell/look burnt/dark? Being it's an auction car I assume you can't test drive it. The 97-03 cars are known to loose overdrive due to stripping the 4th clutch hub, and the tapshift trans in the later cars can have issues. I'd also take a close look at the supercharger pulley and see if it's stock. If there is any mark on it indicating its not then I'd question it.

Hello and thank you for the reply! Just now seeing this 5 days later sorry about that. Didn't realize I forgot the year in this post and I also planned on posting a pic with it but after typing realized you can't just upload one here. But anyway it's an 04 comp g model. I ended up buying I couldn't resist and the price was super good. But yea I've come to conclusion it's the LIM along with valve cover gaskets most likely. I just did the LIM on a regular 3800 with the metal fel-pro kit and it went well so ordered the same and plan on doing that again soon. Ordered a bunch of stuff actually, and just got the flush done today it really needed it coolant was turning to clay on radiator cap.
Is it that Important to change to green coolant? I've already bought the dex cool and have read it's ok to use long as you flush it every few years?
Plan to run it through for a bit and check to see how it looks after few thousand miles and go from there..

The tranny fluid looked ok but it does seem to have a rough shift into reverse, almost a clunk that shakes the entire car...any ideas? Ordered a trans filter/gasket and plan to change fluid here soon.
Also did the supercharger oil stuff was almost black..any idea how much oil I should have used to refill? Think I used about 7oz should I pull an oz or so out or that's good?
And lastly the traction control/abs/emergency brake lights are all on, I've read it's possible the wheel sensors? What do you think?